she's got hands like ice and a soul like fire
by a-isforalison
Summary: the city is not her home, the lights are not alive, and her eyes are dead. / Riley kisses Lucas and ruins everything. At least for a little while she does. But it's never too late to apologize. [rilaya] oneshot


The cold comes crushing down on her, the rain so numb her flesh burns. Something's dead and sullen in her sunken eyes. Maybe that's her heart or maybe that's her hope, either way, she walks all by her lonesome through the dark night. People are all around her, they're alive and the words they speak are electrifying in her head, but her heart hears how casual the conversation really is.

No one even gives the blonde a second look, no one cares to put her under their umbrella or to offer her a coat. They've got body heat to spare but not a damn to give.

She expects nothing less from the world, it's why her heart's sinking down past her throat again. Down with memories of a girl who would link arms to share body heat and place her under the same shiny umbrella from all those summers ago. The memory should be buried six feet under but the blonde can't force herself to it.

It's all so dead to the rest of the world but so real to her.

City lights flicker and a few men eye her like candy in a store, she hisses a string of unladylike words that the doe eyed girl would cover her ears at. She's in no mood to deal with the wicked grins they have.

The water drips from her coat and down her burning cold skin. _Drip, drip, drip._ A sliver of her sanity wishes it would shut up but the rest of her just wants to dive into her bed and never come out.

Mom is still at work, she took the graveyard shift at her second or third job, Maya just doesn't care anymore. What job it is doesn't matter.

Her heart's never felt so dreadfully full and warm but her skin's always been so cold. Barren memories grace her and she tries to force her heart to rest.

That sharp mind is dreary and those hazy eyes are still dead like burnt out embers. She glances in a mirror, her hair is soaked and clinging to her neck, her skin looks harsh and abused by the cold sheets of rain, and her eyes look hazy like she's drunk but still so sharp—is this how she always looks?

For a brief second, as she's pondering her eyes, brown flashes across the mirror. It's just a trick of her mind but she sees it so vividly and knows that it's the doe eyed girl she loves so much—too much, she knows—which terrifies her just a bit. She should stop thinking about these matters while she still can.

Her heart needs to rest and her brain needs to just shut up while the rest of her freezes half to death. She grips her own throat for a moment and feels the ice that must reside on her hands. "Go away, Riley," she says to the nothing that is present.

Sometimes she thinks she's losing her mind over this. But sometimes she swears she can see everything now.

"But I just got here, Maya."

That's it, she's freaking insane. She's hearing things now, Riley is mad at her because she's mad at Riley for kissing Lucas—but why oh, why should she care if she keeps telling herself that Riley is "just" her best friend?

"Riles?"

"In the flesh."

"I thought you hated me right now."

"How could I ever hate my best friend?"

The blonde says nothing and wraps her arms around the doe eyed girl. _You are my world, you are my everything, I'm so sorry._ She can't say it. The words won't form in her dry throat (but how is that dry when the rest of her is soaked?) and her lips won't part long enough to say _anything._ Nothing but a sob comes out when she tries.

"Maya, you must be freezing," the brunette exclaims, "come on, you're changing into something warm and we're getting hot cocoa!" She grabs the blonde's hand and, suddenly, those blue eyes are electric. Something rushes through her and she swears she's never felt warmer than in that instant. "Eek! Your hands are _so cold!_"

"I know, Riley. They always are," she laughs. It fills the air around her and this house becomes a home.

_Anywhere_ Riley Matthews is is a home. Because Riley Matthews sets her soul on fire.

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><p><em>reviews are love.<em>


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